TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Nature Revolting Against Monsanto

This trip in managing nature appears to be having a shorter lifespan
than anyone ever expected. It also suggests that other GM products
will emerge as just as vulnerable. This will at the least accelerate
the conversion of industrial farming to the organic protocol, now
recognized and proven to be superior.

If greater productivity is needed, then we are also looking at a new
economic accommodation that allows higher manpower.

To put this is the clearest possible terms. If a thousand acre field
is managed as a simple grain crop, the gross from that field may be
$200,000 through $500,000 for one operator. That same land can be
used to support specialty crops and value added processing to see an
income approaching many times that for a number of families. Even a
back of the envelope gives me fifty families and $5,000,000 gross.

Farming got a bad name because it was the last refuge of labor
exploitation of which we still retain vestiges today. A regulatory
regime easily overcomes that as well as an internal economy which the
modern computer makes easy.

Let us make it simple. Raspberries need to be picked by hand. A
proper field can be efficiently picked at the rate of ten pounds per
hour. No more and no less either. Thus the task itself has an
inherent base wage cost of around $0.70 to $1.00 per pound. The
grower needs as much to run those fields. Thus a modest wholesale
and retail margin tells us that the selling price needs to be over
$2.00. Until a decade ago, minimum wage protection was not available
for farm workers in BC and prices reflected just that. There is
always a low ball import price that can be used to justify all that.
With minimum wage established everyone adjusted knowing the field was
now level and prices do reflect the new regime.

Of course raspberries are lousy travelers and rapid delivery to
market is critical. Surplus goes quickly to processing. It is still
a compelling example.

Nature fights back - bugs devour
GM Monsanto corn with a vengeance

Friday,
June 22, 2012 by: Tony Isaacs

(NaturalNews)
Corn genetically engineered by Monsanto to kill western corn rootworm
is reportedly being devoured by those pests with a vengeance. Thanks
to heavy reliance on the genetically modified (GM) crops, the tiny
rootworm pest has overtaken fields, outsmarting the genetic
engineering that was supposed to keep it away.

Nature
fights back against GM corn

The
GM corn, launched in 2003, is engineered to produce a protein, known
as Cry3Bb1, derived from a bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis,
or Bt. In theory, rootworms ingest Bt corn roots and the protein is
fatal. However, recent reports indicate that pesticide-resistant
rootworms are showing up weeks earlier and more voraciously than
ever.

In
a research paper published in the July/August/September 2012 issue of
the journal GM Crops & Food, scientists reported that
samples taken in 2010 indicated that rootworm populations had an
eleven-fold survival rate on Cry3Bb1 maize than did control
populations. The paper noted that resistant corn rootworm populations
first identified in 2009 had three-fold survival rates on Cry3Bb1
maize at that time compared to other populations.

Mike
Gray, a professor of entomology with the University of
Illinois reported: "We're still early in the growing
season, and the adults are about a month ahead of schedule,"
explained Gray. "I was surprised to see them - and there were a
lot."

Reports
of increasing rootworm damage began coming in last year after Iowa
State University researcher Aaron Gassmann published a study saying
that the rootworms in Iowa were becoming resistant to GM corn,
creating so-called "superbugs." Farmers in several states
found that the western corn rootworm was surviving after ingesting an
insecticidal toxin produced by the corn plants.

With both
demand and prices high, many farmers are planting corn year after
year and on more acres, increasing the possibility that resistance
could develop. Typically,
corn farmers have had to rotate corn crops to minimize pest
pressures. But with Bt corn, many simply planted "corn on corn,"
year after year. Federal regulators require a 20 percent "refuge"
of non-Bt corn near Bt acres, but many growers have ignored that and
oversight has been lax.

The
new "superbug" rootworms may lead to serious financial woes
for both farmers and the rest of us, according to a letter sent to
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 22 prominent
scientists and corn-management experts from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture and universities across the Midwestern Corn Belt.
Patrick Porter, PhD, associate professor at Texas A&M
University, who drafted the letter, noted that farmers are paying
almost twice as much for seeds that don't live up to their promises,
and are then having to resort to insecticides on top of that.

The
potential result, according to Porter, is crop failure which could
raise food prices at the grocery store. Porter said, "If farmers
start taking damage (from) any pest, that will lower yields. That
will reduce the supply of corn and increase prices." Porter also
noted that when prices for corn go up, more farmers start planting
corn despite the risks, and when growers shift to growing more of one
crop, they grow less of other crops and those crops' prices also go
up.

Adding
to GM crop concerns, recent research from Canadian scientists found
that pesticides used on genetically modified (GM) crops and, in some
cases, the genes used to create GM crops are able to survive in our
digestive tracts, move into our bloodstreams and, in the case of
pregnant women, show up in their developing infants. The research
contradicts repeated contentions by Monsanto and the EPA that only
insects would be hurt by GM crops.

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Jan 2015 - 3 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled 'Paradigms Shift'. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.